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Ways To Give Back

Summer goes by so quickly, even though the days sometimes pass slowly when I'm home with the kids every day. We keep busy by going on vacation and when we're not away, my boys do several weeks of tennis camp, which they love. We do the usual fun summer activities, like swimming, BBQ's with friends and family, sightseeing around the city, and more.

Another important part of our life—no matter the season—is giving back, doing our part in helping the community, and charity work. I love working with companies and organizations who get the importance of charity and giving back.

Here are some ways you can get active and involved:

Ways To Give Back

Stay active in the community: We love staying active in our community by donating what we no longer need to different charity groups. I love getting my children involved so they learn the importance of giving back from an early age. We donate books we no longer read, give away clothes we've outgrown and even give away household items that we don't need anymore. We drop off to different charity groups throughout the year. Staying involved in our community is important, and showing my boys ways they can help and give back is important to me, too.

Donate: We often buy extra canned goods and other non-perishable food items when we're at the grocery store and drop off in the food donation bins. We've also gone to the local food pantry a few times, as it's a great way to teach my children why we should be donating all the time, not just around the holidays. If you can help, you should.

Recycle: This is something that's pretty easy to do, and if you teach children to reduce, re-use, and recycle from a young age, they'll get in the habit of recycling for life.

Find a charity you love: A charity we donate to every year is CHEO—the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario. Because we've had to use CHEO several times for our oldest son, it's a hospital that's very near and dear to my heart. Any chance I get to donate and give back to CHEO, I do, and my children love knowing that CHEO is our chosen charity.

There are so many ways you can get involved and give back to your community, too. And it's especially worthwhile to show younger children the importance of charity, too. I appreciate the work The Egg Farmers of Canada does to help give back in big ways, too.